( all photos by Southern Living/Laurey W. Glenn)
This Thanksgiving table scape photo shoot that we did with Southern Living Magazine a few years back is one of my favorites. I host Thanksgiving every year at our family’s cottage at Flat Rock in the NC Mountains so it was even more special this year as my family got to enjoy our photo shoot set up! I pulled some of my favorite shots, but you can see all of the details on Southern Living. The china is from my husband’s family so I went somewhat unexpectedly with the pink and gold color theme from the china’s pattern.
I had a yummy suede linen made to fit our dining room table with a large cabled piping in the pale pink. And these “petal pink” taper candles from Creative Candles were the perfect added touch of color to offset not having any flowers in the centerpiece.
There are fabulous antique markets and thrift stores up in the Hendersonville/Asheville area near where we are in Flat Rock. I found old clear glass candlesticks and painted them gold with craft paint. The apples are fall harvest NC apples that were so lovely on their own, I hated to paint them, but they sure did turn out beautifully. All SO easy to DIY and inexpensive!
I love my etched glassware, which doubles as a perfect place card and surcie. I also believe you can never have enough embroidered napkins! These are from Lettered Olive and Elizabeth Joyce Monograms.
Because it happens to work well in our space, and makes it easier for me as the hostess finishing up a large dinner, I always set up a self serve bar. I stock it with the cocktails, proper glassware needed, and cocktail napkins or any other tools needed to properly mix and serve.
Another inexpensive DIY trick that we did here, is to get affordable cotton cocktail napkins (like these from CB2.com) and iron on monogram letters (available online and at most fabric and craft stores).
Our bride wore a gown by 
We wanted to make sure our pristine white rose petal aisle stayed picture perfect for our bride, so ushers seated guests from the outside of the aisles.
After the ceremony, guests enjoyed a garden party cocktail hour on the lawn in front the house ruins, complete with our new custom built oyster tables… perfect for serving chilled oysters on the half shell. One of our other favorite details at cocktail hour were the bar menu booklets… all of the drink offerings were described and printed for guests to peruse and order from.
The interior of the house provided a gorgeous backdrop for some of the cocktail stations… You know we love a decorated mantle, even if it’s in an abandoned house! 
We loved the look of the wedding cake cutting photos being in the house as well, so the couple went ahead and cut the cake before moving into the reception tent and the slices were passed out to guests on pretty trays. 
The centerpiece of the reception tent was a huge square bar with marble tops and fresh greenery “growing” all over it. I love our new macrame lanterns that were clustered over the bar, and we created plenty of fun different seating vignettes for guests to gather and sip. 
Also adding depth and texture to the large white reception tent was our greenery band backdrop…. You have heard about our stage partitions that we created years ago to hide all of the cords and ugly parts of band setup and stage fronts, but we also love what doing backdrop walls does for our couples’ dance photos. This living greenery wall added a more complete feel for our garden tent. 
